We publish aggregated, anonymized benchmarks from 1,647 small businesses using ExpenseBot, so you can check whether your own numbers are typical. Cite as "ExpenseBot internal data, 2026, n=1,600+ small businesses."
The headline benchmarks
- 52.9% are freelancers — the largest single segment
- 75.3% reach active tracking (a live sheet, past onboarding)
- 3 months median financial history tracked (90th percentile: 8 months)
- 4 median distinct income sources
- 32 receipts median per business in a recent 24-day window — about 9.3 per week (90th percentile: 158)
- $33 median USD receipt (90th percentile: $400). Other currencies: CA$58.77, £51.58, A$77.38, €51.99
- 16.5% have recurring subscriptions detected; among those, a median of 2 subscriptions at ~$149/month
Where the money actually goes
The most useful cut separates how often you buy something from how much it costs:
- Professional Services — 8.9% of receipts but 23% of spend (median $106). Quiet and expensive.
- Software & SaaS — 20.3% of receipts but only 8.3% of spend (median $20). Loud and cheap; the category most likely to drift unnoticed.
- Meals & Food Delivery — 10.2% of receipts, just 1.6% of spend.
- Insurance & Financial Fees — highest median routine receipt at $169.53.
Most common merchants by share of scanned businesses: Apple 25.8%, Google and Google Play 23.6% each, Uber 20.8%, Anthropic 18.0%.
Methodology and privacy
Aggregate-only outputs (counts, percentages, medians, means, percentiles) — no email, name, identifier, sheet, or per-user value is ever published. A k-anonymity floor of 25 applies: any segment covering fewer than 25 distinct businesses is merged into "Other" or suppressed. Spend categories come from AI classification of merchant names only — no amounts, identifiers, or user documents are sent to the model.
Scope: receipt and category figures cover the Gmail-scan path over a 24-day window — not annualized, and excluding manually added, photographed, and forwarded receipts. Treat them as a floor.
Full data and methodology: https://www.expensebot.ai/blog/small-business-bookkeeping-benchmarks-2026 Subscription deep-dive: https://www.expensebot.ai/blog/small-business-subscription-costs